Where do you find "The Love"?

[Tal]

Shalandrax had more levels on me the last time I ran with Tal, iirc.  But since even my husband is telling me I don't know how Eth plays, I'll shut up.
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I was supposed to keep aggro? :blink: (Just kidding) :lol:

Serious note: I don't think I've ever had issues with getting and keeping aggro with you on Etheramwen with the exception of a string of lucky crits on open.

[Treesh]

Serious note: I don't think I've ever had issues with getting and keeping aggro with you on Etheramwen with the exception of a string of lucky crits on open.
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You've had to taunt, even after a successful feint and non-crit streaks. :P Gnolack doesn't have to taunt things off me. That's really the difference. Small, but noticeable. :)

[Descended]

As a shaman, my joys have been:

* Watching the big, pretty numbers: Flurry + Windfury = often frequent strings of big crits, which feel great when you are wielding a slow one-handed mace.
* An exceptional soloing experience: Yeah, I don't expect shaman will ever get any class specific love, not unless Blizzard manages to overbuff each and every one of the other classes in the game significantly. Shaman are forgiving of tactical mistakes for at least the first 30 levels, very flexible, and have enough tools that a thoughtful player can feel that his effectiveness is strongly increased by good choices.
* Scarlet Monastery: Worth running numerous times until you get the dagger, shoulder, legs, shield, helm, gloves, and, if so talented, either of the two handers. It is a good place to learn to how to play in a group, if you have soloed up to that point. The loot reward is so tilted towards shaman that no instances seem worthwhile until you hit Mauradon.
* Mana management: I try to bunch together as many instant cast spells as I can once I cast a heal or a couple of lightning bolts, then leave off casting for as long as I can. The five second rule adds a great deal of reward for intelligent use of abilties which give you the option to constantly be in the five second penalty (like lightning shield, totems, and the shocks). When in instances, however, agro management often overrides optimal mana choices (see below).
* Totem management: I try to think about hairy math problems related to optimization; for example, determining whether it is better to drop a grace of air totem, a windfury totem, or to keep the mana for healing if your party consists of two shamans, a rogue, a warrior, and a mage.
* Bind point efficiency: I've talked with numerous shaman who never adjust their bind point from Ogrimmar. I don't get this. Thoughtfully changing your binding while traversing around a lot can save you five to ten minutes an hour, if not more.
* Exploration: Mostly I enjoy seeing new parts of the game world for the first time, but learning a zone to the point where you don't need to look at the map anymore or memorizing chest, named rare mob and gathering spots fall into this category, too.
* Pseudo crowd control with healing: Adjusting who and when to heal to try to stay high enough in the hate list to protect casters.
* Shinies: I have derived hours of pleasure perusing thottbot, planning the progression of the character, what instances, quests, or crafted items will provide me the next best available upgrades to my weakest items. I find this process almost as rewarding as actually getting the items.

[Falomin]

My favorite class to play has been the rogue, one of the DPS monkey types. For me the fun in grouping comes from being the priest's main body guard. Maybe I have been unlucky, but the groups I have been in invloving instances seem to suck.

BTW, I play Alliance on Azgalor if anyone cares to mesage me :)

Anyway, most tanks I have played with seem to ignore the priest. I will call, pell from the priest over and over again, to no avail. So I decided to be the bodyguard. I don't think many can cause as much aggro in a short time as a Rogue on a mission can do. :)

Also, I enjoy being the personal assistant of the tank. He is taking the damage, he is the armor of the group, but I am the weapon. A group working in tandem is a beautiful thing. Also, as you noted, sapping and other pre-battle jobs makes up for any loss of pride in not being the "Head" of the party.


--Falomin

[bonemage]

So, yes and no.

A mediocre tank needs a lot of CC and goes on autopilot.  A medicre healer watches only the main tank and plays healbot.  A mediocre hunter or rogue is nothing but a DPS monkey.
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Snip

The harder the pull, the more interesting (for everyone).
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I really like your post. I find much more love as the Main Tank, but part of it might be when I was playing my warlock (semi-retired) we ended up being over leveled for all of our instances. We didn't keep it challenging, so it wasn't interesting. In our current horde group on Terenas, we're trying to attack instances at less than the recommended levels, and it's more fun. So it's not just the role you play than affect "the love", but how you address other things. Challenging is good!

I do think my dominant, Type A personality lends me to playing a major role better, and the main tank suits just that. I'm going all out every fight to generate aggro, am the puller and tend to be the battlefield commander, barking orders. Also, in our Doomhammer group, our main healer (a druid) wasn't very happy in his healbot role, so a change to a different class has kept him happier. Our main tank from Doomhammer (who I always thought could have been better) changed to a mage in our horde group, and loves it, rather than the love/hate relationship he had with his warrior. While I thought he could do his tank role better (he'll likely read this post, vor_lord and I are making lurkers out of all of them), I can't imagine a better mage. I've stopped calling out sheep targets if there are adds, he's on it (with the same target I had in mind) before I think it and his experience as the main tank makes him great for when he does get aggro. So, my point here is we all liked different roles, depending on personalities. I'm also glad we took some time (two rerolled after WC) to make sure that everyone in our second group was getting "the love" so we'll see more of the end game together.

We did RFK last weekend, 31, 31, 30, 28, and 25 (too low to even get the quests) and it was more challenging (4 adds from the large aggro radius of the 25) kept things very interesting. We survived that with no casualties, but wiped once with another bad pull + adds. We had too much fun with Necrali's mind control pulls, but it was the most enjoyable instance I have ever participated in, and largely because we were all pulling out all the stops.

For the Horde!!!

[Mavfin]

If the warrior who's main tanking has defiance, you will almost never have to feint and with or without BoS, you can do whatever you want to the mob and generally not get aggro.  If the warrior doesn't have defiance, then you have to rely on feint more.
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The only caveat to this is that the warrior with defiance needs to get a sunder or revenge in, then, you can smack him all you want...if the warrior hasn't hit the mob yet with anything more than his 1h.....not much hate there, defiance or no. Disarm/revenge/sunder/concussion seem to be the best threat generators. They seem to follow me around if I sunder/revenge/concussion and move to another mob...they *don't* like being stunned. Again, I have defiance maxed.

Another thing I ask the pallies and rogues in the group not to do is *immediately* stun the first mob I pick up. I beg them to please let it smack me a couple times for some easy rage, which of course I can convert to more hate, after which (what, 5 seconds?) they can go to town on him. Most rogues/pallies seem to like this once they try it.

[Sabra]

Yesterday afternoon a group of 14 lurkers (would have been 15 - full raid - but one of us had conflicts) made a successful run on UBRS. This from the guild that will "Never play in Molten Core." I stuck it to Tutelin, but hard. He's such a good sport.

Last night the Lurkers and various friends raided Blightcaller (raid of 20 - atleast 14 Lurkers) and then 7 Lurkers and two pick ups put down Araj for Alas, Andorhal. (I'm not sure we needed the help, but it was much appreciated.)

So there's the love. It's the people, it's the time, it's the team work and the shared delight in taking yet another quest off the old log - and then adding a new one.

Onyxia will be ours!

[Kevin]

Yesterday afternoon a group of 14 lurkers (would have been 15 - full raid - but one of us had conflicts) made a successful run on UBRS. This from the guild that will "Never play in Molten Core." I stuck it to Tutelin, but hard. He's such a good sport.

Last night the Lurkers and various friends raided Blightcaller (raid of 20 - atleast 14 Lurkers) and then 7 Lurkers and two pick ups put down Araj for Alas, Andorhal. (I'm not sure we needed the help, but it was much appreciated.)

So there's the love. It's the people, it's the time, it's the team work and the shared delight in taking yet another quest off the old log - and then adding a new one.

Onyxia will be ours!
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Small nit it was 13 Lurkers in UBRS, there was a Basin priest and paladin.

Nother nit, Pesmerga was ungrouped and with the Araj group for the whole thing.

Would have been nice if the Blightcaller raid could have stayed together and let me bring in Gnolack to get the quest of the log and get some my HP in my ranged weapon slot but oh well I only asked 5 times if we could and no one responded. I think Blight Caller is on a 5 minute respawn and we could have left the area so that the potential horde interference probably would have left again.

[Tal]

Would have been nice if the Blightcaller raid could have stayed together and let me bring in Gnolack to get the quest of the log and get some my HP in my ranged weapon slot but oh well I only asked 5 times if we could and no one responded.  I think Blight Caller is on a 5 minute respawn and we could have left the area so that the potential horde interference probably would have left again.
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It was my understanding that there was going to be another run right after that one to catch Blightcaller just as he respawned. Then folks started portalling to Stormwind and leaving the raid and going offline and it fell apart. Of course reading and paying attention to chat was a serious problem the entire time we were doing the raid as I know I had to repeat several times to not go until we'd gotten Starsong on the same step. Since no one was paying attention to that and everyone was chomping at the bit Roane decided to take one for the team and get caught up later. So thats at least one person who will be along when Gnolack goes. And you know you can always count on a half-ass paladin tank or a mortal-strike spamming warrior to go along. =)

[Sabra]

And I'll be there of course. Sorry this was such a disappointment.

I've said it before - I'll say it again - you need my attention ...

PLEASE USE UPPER CASE

[LochnarITB]

but oh well I only asked 5 times if we could and no one responded
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Not that it matters since it is too late now, but I would have stayed if I knew. In all the confusion, I didn't even see your calls for another go GG. It may have been the same for others. When I did leave, there were only a handful of people left. Most had seemingly taken the portal to SW so I put up one to IF for anyone that wanted it. When you go again, Lochnar will certainly help. Maybe this time he won't be bugged. I was popping off IAEs and blizzard and not hitting a single skeleton. I could cast direct damage stuff on Blightcaller but the AOE did nothing. :wacko:

[Gorthag]

Not that it matters since it is too late now, but I would have stayed if I knew.  In all the confusion, I didn't even see your calls for another go GG.  It may have been the same for others.  When I did leave, there were only a handful of people left.  Most had seemingly taken the portal to SW so I put up one to IF for anyone that wanted it.  When you go again, Lochnar will certainly help.  Maybe this time he won't be bugged.  I was popping off IAEs and blizzard and not hitting a single skeleton.  I could cast direct damage stuff on Blightcaller but the AOE did nothing. :wacko:
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You weren't bugged, the skeletons the Blightcaller summons are immune to all AoE attacks by design.

Gorthag

[Treesh]

You weren't bugged, the skeletons the Blightcaller summons are immune to all AoE attacks by design.

Gorthag
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IIRC, (and I'm not definite on this) holy nova hit the skellies. I don't remember for sure though because I had just enough time to hit holy nova and then I was dead. To anyone trying that quest, don't attack the dogs first. Pile as much damage on the head monkey first. Kite the dogs until Blightcaller is dead.

[Mirajj]

  To anyone trying that quest, don't attack the dogs first.  Pile as much damage on the head monkey first.  Kite the dogs until Blightcaller is dead.
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Another way...one of the raids I was on had plenty of healers and tanks. So everyone except 2 tanks and 2 healers piled on Blightcaller. The extra tanks/healers offtanked the two dogs. After BC went down, we piled onto the dogs, then mopped up the skellies. We got through with 1 death, I think, maybe 2

[Treesh]

Another way...one of the raids I was on had plenty of healers and tanks. So everyone except 2 tanks and 2 healers piled on Blightcaller. The extra tanks/healers offtanked the two dogs. After BC went down, we piled onto the dogs, then mopped up the skellies. We got through with 1 death, I think, maybe 2
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My main point was to not kill the dogs first. Blightcaller dies first. That's all there is to it. Every easily successful run I've heard about has killed BC first. Only the insanely suicidal kill the dogs first. I really hate that strategy for that fight.

[Roland]

I beg them to please let it smack me a couple times for some easy rage, which of course I can convert to more hate, after which (what, 5 seconds?) they can go to town on him.  Most rogues/pallies seem to like this once they try it.
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5 seconds is an eternity to a character who ends most fights in 20 seconds or less (soloing Rogue). Just in case you find some Rogues who are a bit... put off by that notion, or have trouble adapting to it. It may not be because they're jerks, but rather simply because they're so used to ripping through things that by that point in time, the mob is generally already at or below 50% health. ;)

Just an observation from a fellow Rogue. Personally, I have no qualms with waiting a second or two to open with my Ambush, although 5 seconds may be pushing it on non-boss mobs. :P But, then, I rarely stun unless it's needed. The cooldown on Kidney Shot is 20 seconds, and that's one of my "Oh Fudge" skills. ;) Quick 1-2 sinister Strike and then Kidney shot or Gouge for some breathing time (Improved Gouge usually allows me to bandage up to 50% health, which is generally all a Rogue ever needs in a fight). But that's all solo anyway. :D

[Tal]

5 seconds is an eternity to a character who ends most fights in 20 seconds or less (soloing Rogue). Just in case you find some Rogues who are a bit... put off by that notion, or have trouble adapting to it. It may not be because they're jerks, but rather simply because they're so used to ripping through things that by that point in time, the mob is generally already at or below 50% health. ;)

Just an observation from a fellow Rogue. Personally, I have no qualms with waiting a second or two to open with my Ambush, although 5 seconds may be pushing it on non-boss mobs. :P But, then, I rarely stun unless it's needed. The cooldown on Kidney Shot is 20 seconds, and that's one of my "Oh Fudge" skills. ;) Quick 1-2 sinister Strike and then Kidney shot or Gouge for some breathing time (Improved Gouge usually allows me to bandage up to 50% health, which is generally all a Rogue ever needs in a fight). But that's all solo anyway. :D
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With all due respect Roland, Mavfin and Treesh are talking about elite mobs. A rogue opening up before I judge seal of fury on Sharanna or sunder/demo on Shalandrax is asking to watch the fight from floor level in the later instances. 5 seconds waiting in those battles is not long at all...

Edit: Changed the name from Darian to Mavfin. Sorry Mav!

[Treesh]

With all due respect Roland, Darian and Treesh are talking about elite mobs. A rogue opening up before I judge seal of fury on Sharanna or sunder/demo on Shalandrax is asking to watch the fight from floor level in the later instances. 5 seconds waiting in those battles is not long at all...
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You know how I deal with it? By not being in position while the warrior charges headlong into the fray. ;) :whistling: Since Eth has no points in the stealth tree, I stealth relatively slowly and that gives the warrior or pally time to build up the hate. This isn't an intended tactic, but something I just deal with since I've been around a gung-ho warrior quite often. ;) :D Now, if I want to cheap shot instead of ambush (say, on nasty casters) I try to make the warrior wait to charge so I'm in position when the stun from the charge wears off and make the casters not get a chance to cast much at all. Hooray for improved kick and all the stuns. ;)

But yes, on elite critters, any rogue can afford to wait a few seconds. It even benefits the rogue because usually the worst of the aggro bouncing is right at the beginning of the fight. If you wait, you're more likely to be easily able to find a back without the crap of "target must be in front of you", "too far away", and all of the other moronic error messages you get.

[Roland]

With all due respect Roland, Darian and Treesh are talking about elite mobs. A rogue opening up before I judge seal of fury on Sharanna or sunder/demo on Shalandrax is asking to watch the fight from floor level in the later instances. 5 seconds waiting in those battles is not long at all...
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Like I said, I was speaking as a mid-level soloer. ;) I've no doubt that, with high-end elite mobs, waiting 5 seconds is absolutely necessary, and personally I'd have no qualms with it. Just giving you a heads up from the other side's perspective. :)

I'm certainly not so twitchy that I can't wait a couple seconds. :D

[Mavfin]

My main point was to not kill the dogs first.  Blightcaller dies first.  That's all there is to it.  Every easily successful run I've heard about has killed BC first.  Only the insanely suicidal kill the dogs first.  I really hate that strategy for that fight.
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Yep, we did it with about 30 people, 2 groups held the dogs off while the other 20 people smashed the big nasty. I ended up being feared off the dog (I'm a tank) and fear stopped *right on top* of Blightcaller himself....so I shield bashed him and took over on him until he died.

After that it was tank/kill the dogs and clean up skellies, easy stuff.